


there's nothing that i take back

by liginamite



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: (only a brief mention but still), Ableist Language, Acceptance, Bittersweet Ending, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Period-Typical Slurs, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5002633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liginamite/pseuds/liginamite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They stare at each other for a moment, and when Eli speaks, his voice is weak, cracking at the edges, a stone’s throw from hysterical.</p><p>“...you’re dead.” It feels hollow, the words. “I saw you die.” </p><p>The smile grows wider, and Mickey cocks his head.</p><p>“I know,” he says, oddly calm. “Peculiar, ain’t it?” </p><p> <sub><i>(or, mickey's dead, eli's upset about everything, and they both have a lot of personal feelings to work out.)</i></sub></p>
            </blockquote>





	there's nothing that i take back

**Author's Note:**

> this really was not supposed to be this long goddamn. 
> 
> uh. anyway. i ship this??? i ship it _so much._ it's destroying me, so. here is the result!!!
> 
> title comes from the song [silhouettes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaCCYL7TXLY) by of monsters and men, which was basically on repeat the entire time i wrote this
> 
> anyway, come say hi on [tumblr!](http://donytello.tumblr.com)

  
He stops counting the money after he hits ten grand.  
  
Most of Eli hadn’t even planned on counting _any_ of it in the first place; having a solid, tangible number to the stacks that Nucky left behind makes it more real than Eli cares for, but curiosity got the better of him. Now, he’s left sitting on the single bed with money laid out next him and a future too bleak to even bother considering. Nucky left him more than just money and a shave.  
  
So preoccupied is he with staring blankly into space that Eli doesn’t really register the voice from the doorway, light and airy.  
  
“Sure is a lot a dough.”  
  
Eli grunts, rubbing the pads of his thumbs into his eyes until stars dance across his vision. He knows it.  
  
“Don’t know what he expects me to do with it,” he mumbles, swiping his hands down and sighing. “Not like I got much to spend it on--”  
  
It hits him, then. Harsh words. A gunshot. The scuffling of thirty men against dirt and the copper smell of blood thick in the air. Dying gasps.  
  
He snaps his head up, turns too sharply to look towards the entrance and feels instantly as though he’s been dumped straight into the ocean outside. The man standing there grins at him, leaning against the doorway. There’s something joyless in the smile, something deep and troubling that Eli can’t put a finger to. They stare at each other for a moment, and when Eli speaks, his voice is weak, cracking at the edges, a stone’s throw from hysterical.  
  
“...you’re dead.” It feels hollow, the words. “I _saw_ you die.”  
  
The smile grows wider, and Mickey cocks his head.  
  
“I know,” he says, oddly calm. “Peculiar, ain’t it?”  
  
-  
  
Fifteen minutes later and Mickey’s still not gone, puttering around the little apartment and touching _everything_ while Eli tries his goddamn hardest to keep calm. It’s not easy, as there’s a dead man currently turning a bottle of Coca-Cola in his hands and chattering on about how he’s shocked he can touch anything at all, did you know ghosts can’t really touch much of anything? He’s tried, oh believe him, he has _tried,_ especially when he stopped at the club, if you catch his _drift_ \--but Eli gives it his damn best.  
  
He breathes slowly, runs a hand down his face until his stubble scratches at his fingertips.  
  
“Mickey,” he says carefully, interrupting, and Mickey turns to look at him. “Am I drunk? Or... or _dead_?”  
  
“Heh. I can’t say much for the former,” is the curt reply, and the glass bottle makes a soft clunk on the wood as Mickey replaces it on the shelf. There’s a small smile on his lips. “But no, Eli. You’re not dead.”  
  
He puts his head in his hands as Mickey watches, trying to keep taking deep, calming breaths. He’s not drunk. He’s stopped drinking, since Nucky handed over Atlantic City. Maybe it’s that he’s finally just fucking cracked, or maybe it’s just a dream. Maybe he’s sleeping. He peeks out through his fingers, prays that he’s going to wake up at any minute and prove it’s all just a wild fantasy, a way for his brain to tell him he needs to fucking sleep. It can’t be real. It can’t.  
  
He’s not being haunted by Mickey fucking Doyle.  
  
But there’s Mickey, and he’s got an eyebrow raised at Eli,  thumbs hooked into his belt loops. He looks the same as always, bright eyes, crooked smile, hat on his head. He’s wearing the same clothes as the ones he died in; for fuck’s sake, he looks like he could’ve walked right out of that damn strip club of his and gotten into the car to go meet Luciano.  
  
“You’re dead,” Eli repeats weakly. Mickey rolls his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, that’s what you keep saying. I got the picture, Charlie Chan,” he says, and then swallows a little awkwardly. There’s nothing about his demeanor that suggests anything but calm, but there’s something just so _off_ about him. Mickey’s always been the sort clearly ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but now there’s a new tenseness to it, something similar to an animal caught in a trap, waiting for the rope to be cut so he can run for his life.  
  
“Then what the fuck are you doing here, Mickey?” Eli demands, panic rising in his throat. But again, Mickey just grins in that lopsided way of his, looks around the apartment again as if maybe the walls hold all the answers. His fingers twitch, a nervous habit, rub against each other at his side as he speaks.  
  
“If I knew that, d’you think I’d be wasting my time in this dump? Meaning no offense, of course.” He giggles, the same as always, high and nervous and so goddamn full of himself, and that’s what solidifies it, what makes it real.  
  
Eli’s breath starts coming in too sharp, because there’s a dead man standing in his doorway in his shitty new apartment, wearing the clothes he had on when he died, giggling and staring at him and talking to him like nothing’s happened, like it’s seven years ago and they’re going to sit down together in their office and run numbers on all of Nucky’s booze.  
  
“Oh, no. No, no, no, Eli, come on. Keep it together.” Mickey’s voice sounds strained. “Don’t start that, now.”  
  
“A dead man’s telling me to calm down,” Eli snaps, pulling his hands down into fists as he stands up. Figures, they’d get into an altercation by the end of this. Mickey’s hands are up, placating, defensive, and somehow that makes Eli angrier.  “A _dead man,_ who I watched die, who got _shot in front of me,_ is telling me to calm down, you think that’s not reason enough to fall apart?”  
  
“And you ain’t the one who’s dead, eh?” Mickey’s nose twitches, lips an angry line. The tenseness in him has shot up a notch, and his fingers keep scraping against each other where they’ve fallen back down at his sides. His voice is tighter.  “Jesus, Eli, you’re complaining more than I am!”  
  
“You’re not the one’s gonna be sent to the fuckin’ loony bin,” Eli shouts, and part of him is aware that he’s probably shouting to an empty room, already looks crazy enough. “I’m fuckin’, fuckin’ arguing with a? A ghost? Is that what you are? What the fuck are you?”  
  
“Boy, you’re even more of a simp then I remember,” Mickey snaps, bristling with irritation. He’s still calmer than Eli, but it ain’t by much. He’s going a little red in the cheeks, like he’s still got blood pumping in his veins. “How many times I gotta say I don’t _know_?”  
  
“People don’t just fuckin’ show up in someone’s apartment after they die, Mickey!” Eli needs a fucking drink, he needs to leave or, or go find Nucky again, or check himself into a damn hospital because there’s absolutely no way that this could be happening to him. He’s gone crazy, at last, after years of stress and aggravation and depression and a truly _inordinate_ amount of alcohol.  
  
“Really? Thanks for the update. You oughta think about working on the wireless, knack for information like you.”  
  
Eli growls and storms past, intent on barreling through the door and maybe dunking his head into the ocean. Normally, with the way things used to be, so many years ago, he’d shoulder his way past and maybe even knock Mickey back a little, but when he’s nearly to the door Mickey moves aside like he’s been burned. Eli barely has time to grab his shirt, but he manages, and then he’s practically hurtling down the steps as he buttons it up with shaking fingers.  
  
It can’t be happening. It absolutely can’t be.  
  
“Good solution,” Mickey says from next to him, sudden and unexpected, and Eli swears and jumps back. “Only, I can’t go nowhere unless it’s with you, turns out.”  
  
“Jesus Christ!” People turn to stare at him, but Eli barely notices. He reaches out to grab Mickey by the arm, drag him back towards the apartment before he can get into it again and have people call the police for talking to himself, but again Mickey jerks away from him.  
  
“What,” he snaps, and Eli glares at him. “Anything you’ve gotta say, you don’t need to grab me to do it.”  
  
“What the _fuck_ do you mean you can’t go anywhere without me,” Eli hisses under his breath, stalking back to the apartment. It seems the logical thing to do, and sure enough Mickey trails after him. He looks irate, sulky even, hands stuffed in his pockets. Eli swings the door to his apartment open again and points inside. Mickey follows the direction well enough, but it’s not without a raised eyebrow and the huff of a giggle.  
  
“Don’t you think we oughta get some dinner together before you start ordering me around in the bedroom?” he asks dryly, and Eli’s a hair shy of shouting again.  
  
“ _What do you mean,_ ” he repeats, hard and through his teeth, “that you can’t go anywhere without me?”  
  
Insufferable as always, Mickey shrugs and rests himself on the windowsill. “Exactly what it means. You tried to walk away, I got tugged after you had me hooked on a line.” He opens his arms wide, as if to say _not my fault._ “You really think I’m choosing _you_ when I could be haunting much bigger fish in the sea?”  
  
Eli honestly wants to shove his face into his own hands and scream until he goes hoarse. Mickey’s irritating on the best of days, but Eli’s too stressed out at this point of his life to be able to deal with any of this. It’s simply too much. In the back of his mind he wonders just why he’s so easily accepted that he’s gone nuts, talking to his own delusions, but what else is he supposed to do? Mickey stares back at him, still a long line of tenseness up his spine. He looks like he’s waiting for Eli to explode, and maybe he will.  
  
In a long line of strange things to happen to him, this is by far the most inexplicable.  
  
“Okay,” Eli says after a moment, after they’ve been staring at each other like two animals waiting for the other to pounce. “Okay. I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. There, better?”  
  
Mickey snorts. “Figures the first apology I get from you, I’m _dead._ ”  
  
“Take what you can get, Mick.”  
  
A grin, nothing but bitterness and old spite. “Only way to live, Eli.”  
  
“So I’m stuck? With _you_?” Eli runs a hand down his face, staring at Mickey between the gaps of his fingers. Mickey’s making a face at him, scrunched up and irritable.  
  
“ _Yes,_ you’re stuck with me, and _I’m_ stuck with _you_. Everything’s Jake,” Mickey adds, taking off his hat. He brushes nonexistent dust off the sloped top, movements jerky. He’s still red in the cheeks, and as tactful as he tends to be, Eli blurts,  
  
“You’re actually dead?”  
  
“Eli, I swear to Jesus Christ and all his disciples, you ask me that one more time you’re gonna join me.”  
  
Pressing his lips together tightly, Eli eyeballs his visitor up and down, taking in the whole sight. Mickey looks uncomfortable with the scrutiny, or maybe he’s just still reeling. Not every day you get shot down and then wake up on the boardwalk with a new roommate.  
  
Hesitantly, after they’ve sat there in silence for a long while, Mickey says, “you get your son back?”  
  
“...what?” Eli blinks at him, and Mickey gestures impatiently, waves his hat vaguely in Eli’s direction.  
  
“Your _son,_ nitwit. You get him back?”  
  
_Will._ The whole reason they’d been out there in the first place. Mickey had come out with them to do dealings with Luciano and Lansky; hell, Nucky had even told Mickey he shouldn’t have come, but he’d insisted. Eli looks down at the floor, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Why’s it matter?” he mutters, and Mickey makes an intense noise of distaste.  
  
“Maybe because I don’t have a damn clue what happened after I kicked it,” he says stiffly. “I think I at least deserve to know, don’t you? Or is that not in the cards for me?” He laughs then, giggles, but it’s empty and more mocking than anything else. He doesn’t seem like he wants to laugh about anything.  
  
Eli swallows hard.  
  
“...yeah. We got him back. Nucky gave Luciano all of Atlantic City, and they dumped him back at his job the next day.” He neglects to mention the part he played in Maranzano’s murder, but Mickey doesn’t seem that interested in those details anyway; instead, he moans like he’s in pain.  
  
“Even the club? Everything?” When Eli nods, he shoves his hat back onto his head and scowls. “Figures. Charlie loves fuckin’ me over, he’s probably going to ruin all my work just outta spite.” He sighs heavily and half-heartedly glares at Eli. "Boy, the things I do for you, Thompson, just to get fucked."

“Kiss my ass, Mickey.”  
  
“Yeah?” Mickey grins. “Cash or check?”  
  
It feels remarkably familiar, their bantering back and forth. Eli could almost trick himself into believing that everything’s normal, that it’s the same as it ever was, before everything went to shit so many years ago.  
  
Eli opens his mouth to answer, but they both turn towards the boardwalk when a loud _bang_ echoes through the wood. It’s dark out, now; Eli hadn’t noticed the sun setting. They look at each other, and then Eli thinks he hears another bang. It sounded like a gunshot.  
  
“The fuck was that,” he mutters, pushing aside a curtain, and when he turns his head, Mickey’s standing next to him with a distant look in his eyes.  
  
“Well, it’s not good,” is the reply, curt and sharp and full of resignation. Eli stares at him for a long moment, but when Mickey offers up no other explanation, he just lets the curtain fall back with a sigh.  
  
-  
  
There’s no one left but the police to come find him, no one else to be the bearer of bad news, and when he answers the door the next morning for one terrifying moment Eli is so very sure this is the end.  
  
“You are Elias Thompson, correct?” the cop says, and Eli nods stiffly. There’s nowhere to run, and he’s damn sure that he’ll be going to jail for a lot longer than two years this time. But the man just sighs deeply and looks down at the pad hanging loosely from his fingers.  
  
“I’m very sorry to inform you, Mr. Thompson,” he says and from behind Eli, Mickey has crept up, looking at the whole scene with interest. “Your brother has died.”  
  
-  
  
It’s a lavish affair, of course. Eli wouldn’t expect anything different.  
  
The casket is closed, something Eli’s oddly thankful for. He thinks back to his father’s funeral, dead and cold and displayed to anyone who wanted to see. The words he and Nucky had exchanged. It feels like an eternity ago, so much longer than ten years, when the world was completely different then.  
  
He sits in the back for a while, wearing a suit he managed to rent off the boardwalk using one of the stacks his brother had left behind. Nucky, still looking out for him to the last. Mickey followed, of course, and Eli’s pretty devotedly ignoring him, which pleases Mickey well enough. They’re both still trying to work out exactly what this arrangement is going to entail.  
  
So he sits there, staring at the casket.  
  
People offer their condolences, of course, to tell him how his brother has helped them out in some way, the jokes he used to tell, how very sorry they are to hear about his loss. Eli… he’s polite, at least. Nods and smiles in all the right places, thanks everyone for their well-wishing and hopes it’s enough to get them all out of his hair. He doesn’t want to be around people, never really does, but now especially, he just wants the entire world to go away and leave him to drown slowly in his pain.  
  
He’s sitting there for a long while, the brim of his hat twisted in his fingers. Mickey tries maybe once or twice to approach him, but Eli’s made it abundantly clear that for now, he wants nothing to do with… with whatever it is that Mickey wants. He probably goes to entertain himself some other way. Perhaps he’s going to try knocking things over again.  
  
Nucky’s dead. That’s that. And despite whatever intentions Eli may have had in the past, despite what Nucky has said and done to him, despite every goddamn difference between the two of them, Eli feels like he’s falling apart at the seams. All the threads of his life, plucked out one by one until he’s going to simply unravel.  
  
He doesn’t pay much attention during the ceremony, doesn’t really digest any of it. Only stares ahead, numb to the words, until eventually he looks up to find a familiar face walking towards the front.  
  
“Margaret?”  
  
She startles, looking down at him as she comes to a stop.  
  
“Eli,” she replies, looking vaguely surprised. There are lines in the corners of her eyes where there hadn’t been the last time he saw her, but Margaret’s as beautiful as ever. “I-- well. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”  
  
He can only blink at her for a moment before registering that she spoke to him. Clearing his throat, Eli inclines his head politely. “It has, yeah. Yes.”  
  
She smiles at him after a moment, clutching her purse in her hands, before staring ahead at the casket.  
  
“The children, they… wanted to be here,” she explains when the silence becomes too heavy. Eli’s been watching Mickey flit here and there among the crowd, and while he doesn’t necessarily go out of his way to bump into anyone, Eli can see how people seem to move out of his way regardless. “They still remembered him, you see. They wanted to pay their respects.”  
  
She nods her head towards two of the patrons, and Eli follows her line of vision. Sitting in the front row are two teenagers, one a tall blond boy, his suit respectable, and a slightly younger, pretty little thing with her short curls bouncing around her cheeks. Eli remembers when they were small and rosy-cheeked, and it drives home just how long it’s been, how much has changed since those days.  
  
“Kind of them," he manages, looking back towards Margaret. He can’t help himself. “And you?”  
  
A soft laugh, without very much mirth in it. “We've all good and bad memories to linger on in times of misfortune. I’d prefer the good ones, for now.”  
  
A good philosophy, in theory, but Eli’s never been good at looking on the bright side. He remembers those old times, remembers how Margaret used to be back then, and wonders what happened to make her so strong and sure now. She must notice how he turns away again, still wringing his hat between his hands, because rather than ask how he’s doing she simply says, “are you going to be alright?”  
  
He tries to smile up at her, but it falls pathetically short. She’s clearly uncomfortable now, and he doesn’t know what to say. He attempts something, anyway.  
  
“I’m just…going to have to try and figure it all out, I guess.”  
  
“Well. Good luck to you, Eli,” Margaret says softly, her hand on his shoulder. “I hope you do.”  
  
He watches her walk away, proud in her step, sure of her place in the world. But he can’t bear to watch as she collects her children, and instead makes his way over to one of the large windows overlooking the forest beyond. The leaves ruffle in the breeze, the smell of salt still vague in the air. There’s movement in the corner of his eye, and when he turns to look, Mickey’s eyeing him curiously.  
  
“What’s with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” and he giggles, swaying a little with it.  
  
“I see all kinds of ghosts, Mick,” Eli mutters, staring out the window. He needs a cigarette. “You’re just the first one I got to have a conversation with, is all.”  
  
Mickey hums, hands in his pockets. “Well. Lucky you.”  
  
-  
  
He learns to live with it.  
  
Gets a job, works five days a week hauling wood at a construction site. He doesn’t need it, with the money that Nucky gave him, but Eli’s lived in poverty before and he knows money doesn’t last forever. Besides, it gives him something to do. Mickey comes with him, of course, wandering around to get a good look at the world he’s not a part of anymore. Even in the boiling hot sun, Eli dripping sweat down his chin onto his chest, Mickey’s still stuck in the stuffy three-piece suit, but it’s not like he feels any of it. The dissonance of the visual throws him off sometimes.  
  
Every once and a while, when he’s out there, sweaty and gross, Mickey gives him an odd sort of look when he thinks Eli doesn’t see him. It looks like jealousy, and that’s probably what it is. Eli’s not going to pry, but if he were stuck the way Mickey is, watching people go about their lives, he’d be jealous too.  
  
Other times, Mickey’s just nowhere to be found. Eli can’t decide where he goes, since he said he couldn’t go far when Eli’s not around, and he’s not sure he wants to ask. Better to just let it happen, he figures. He’s always back at the apartment when Eli comes home, most of the time staring blankly out the window until Eli slams the door and awareness floods back into his eyes.  
  
He learns to live with it because, quite frankly, neither of them know what else to do.  
  
He wonders, at first, if he’d see Nucky, too. If Nucky would start following him around everywhere, cracking wise and telling him all the things he’s doing wrong. But nothing happens, and when Eli eventually brings it up to Mickey, Mickey only replies evenly that Nucky’s affairs must’ve all been in order when the Darmody kid shot him dead.  
  
“Anyone else see you?” Eli starts asking now and again, but always the same answer. Nope. It’s just Eli, still, and it’s getting old. Mickey huffs and complains and jealously watches all the things that Eli can do that he can’t, like smoke or eat. Eli doesn’t drink anymore, so at least he’s spared that much, he mentions one time.  
  
“Mickey,” he says into the darkness one night, and Mickey turns towards him. He grunts his acknowledgement, perched on the railing just outside the door. He’s figured out how to open it, now, and spends a lot of his time pushing the boundaries of the apartment when Eli’s in it. Staring off into space seems to be his new favorite hobby, but Eli’s not going to question it.  
  
He pushes himself off the bed and makes his way out the door, coming to stand next to where Mickey’s seated himself. All his movements are watched, and he feels self-conscious that way. But he asks, anyway.  
  
“Figured out what you’re doing here yet?”  
  
A long-suffering sigh as Mickey rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, absolutely. All those girls back at the club, they’re what’s keeping me here. I’ve solved it. Never got to sample all the merchandise, you see, now God’s sent me on a holy mission to complete what I was always meant to do.” He presses his palms together, as if in prayer.  
  
Eli wishes he could shove him off the bannister. “You’re such a goddamn wiseass.”  
  
“You’re the one who keeps asking questions you know I ain’t got the answer to,” Mickey shrugs, lowering his hands again. “I’m just as in the dark as you are. By all accounts, I oughta be haunting Luciano.” He grins suddenly, looking mischievous. “Bet I could make him wet his sheets, doing the creepy ghost bit.”  
  
Well, Eli can’t exactly argue against how much he’d like that, but he knows by now Mickey can’t go far, and Luciano probably wouldn’t be able to see him anyway. Behind them, the waves crash against the sand, and there’s the soft chatter of late nighters still walking the boardwalk. They sound carefree, happy, their lives going on with them still in it.  
  
Mickey sighs, and they lapse into silence for so long that Eli’s about to head back inside when Mickey speaks.  
  
“The way I figure it, I’ve probably got some unfinished business needs attending to.” He looks sidelong at Eli. “So, just gotta work out what that is, solve my problem, and it’s the pearly white gates for me.”  
  
Eli hums thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s a start, I guess. What’d you have in mind?”  
  
There’s hesitation long enough that Eli finds it odd, and then Mickey says carefully, “did you send my body back to Philly?”  
  
Eli stares at him for a moment, stunned at the bluntness of the question, before thinking about it. He hadn’t been entirely in his right mind at the time, and he knows Nucky had been wrung out to dry, but… no. No, they hadn’t. In fact, they didn’t have time for a proper funeral. Last rights, maybe, as best you can on a body already going cold. And what a fucked up world it is, that Eli’s talking to the owner of that cold body.  
  
“No, we, uh, I think Nucky might’ve had his people take care of it, but I don’t know specifics.”  
  
To his shock, Mickey sighs in relief.  
  
“Well, that’s good,” he says cheerfully, and when Eli stares at him, he grins. “Ma’s long dead, you see, me’n my brothers sent her back to Poland. Then they stayed, as far as I can remember. No one there to receive the package.”  
  
“So… not your body, then.” Eli figures that’s where Mickey had been going with that. “...revenge? On Luciano and Lansky?”  
  
Mickey shakes his head. “Then why’re you and me getting all chummy?”  
  
That stings, more than Eli had expected it to. “Thought we were already chummy.”  
  
“Eli, Eli, Eli.” Mickey tsks as he shakes his head, but there’s a grin on his face, playful. “Now you and I both know that my tormented soul attaching myself to your body is _obviously_ because of my feelings for you.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and Eli can’t help but roll his eyes.  
  
“Do any of those feelings _not_ involve annoying me?”  
  
“Mmm.” Mickey looks distant again, as he often does now. Eli watches him, unsure. They never had much of these quiet moments when they were first thrown into each other’s company; in fact, Eli spent a lot more time countering every one of Mickey’s choices with some kind of rebuttal, and Mickey, of course, never lost a chance to rile Eli up into a new argument. It was how things worked. Eli was still fucked up from his stint in prison, and he’s willing to admit that Mickey was having a hard time with everyone doing their damned best to make sure Nucky got fucked over, and fucking Mickey over in the process.  
  
Taking it out on each other, Eli reasons now, was probably the best coping mechanism either of them could’ve settled for. Until one day it just… fixed itself, he supposes. A catalyst might’ve been becoming partners rather than boss and employee, but Eli can still look back on casual lunches in their office, conversations in lowered voices while workers bustled around outside.  
  
He’d missed it, in Chicago. He realized that then, and he realizes it again now.  
  
Hell, he’d missed _Mickey._  
  
He’d missed their bantering, their lunches together, the way they developed a wordless communication. The warmth of another person he _trusted_ standing at his side, bumping shoulders, and whoever would have thought that of all the people in the world, it would be Mickey Doyle that Eli would put his trust in. But he did. He trusted Mickey then, and he trusts him now.  
  
Maybe that’s what made this such an easy arrangement, once he’d gotten over the initial shock. There’s no one to visit him anymore, after all. He can’t help but wonder just how much of this new life of his would’ve been unbearable without a constant companion. And it’d ended up being a constant companion he’d already spent an inordinate amount of his time with in the past. Yeah, alright. So he’s _thankful_ for Mickey. So he’s happy Mickey’s around. It feels like a connection he hasn’t had since he last saw June--  
  
Oh, fuck.  
  
“You’re thinkin’ awful hard there, Eli.” Mickey’s voice breaks into his thoughts, and Eli startles, eyes wide as he turns to look at him. He stumbles mentally, trying to figure out what to say.  
  
“Just remembering something, is all,” he says after a moment, shaking his head to clear it. Mickey hums thoughtfully, climbing down off the bannister to lean on it instead, stares up at the stars too. He’s gotten quieter, Mickey. Like he’s exhausted himself, at last, of all the things he wants to say.  
  
They sit again in silence until Eli can’t take it anymore. He asks the question he’s wanted to since this first began.  
  
“Are you really Mickey?”  
  
He gets an odd look for his trouble. “What?”  
  
Eli gestures in a vague direction. “How do I know you’re really Mickey?” When he gets another, even more deeply confused expression, he tries to elaborate. “I mean, I’ve kinda just accepted this, but… how do I _really_ know that I haven’t gone off the deep end? Lot of shit happened in my life, maybe I _have_ just gone crazy.”  
  
He’s expecting mockery, or another long-suffering sigh, but to his surprise Mickey’s quiet.  
  
“I dunno,” he finally answers, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t really have an answer for you, Eli.”  
  
Eli thinks about it for a long moment.  
  
“You got anything I don’t know about?” When, again, Mickey gives him an incredulous look, he elaborates. “Something that my mind can’t make up, you know?”  
  
Mickey rolls his eyes. “Then how would you know if it’s real or not?” he mutters, but obligingly he takes off his hat. He can take it on and off at will, Eli’s found, but he can’t put it down anywhere and it ends up on his head more often than not. He holds it at his side for a moment, oddly timid, and then gestures. The intent is clear and, after a pause, Eli reaches up and brushes aside some of Mickey’s hair, where it had started to unstick from the pomade when he had still been alive. They’re breaking their no-touch rule, and Eli understands the intimacy of it.  
  
Mickey’s letting him, but Eli knows that every inch of him wants nothing more than to flee, to run far away from emotional intimacy and all the baggage that comes with allowing yourself to care about another person. Mickey’s always been like that, Eli knows. Let the world in too much, the world takes too much of you and doesn’t give it back.  
  
He touches lightly, fingers brushing at the raised white line across Mickey’s temple. He’s never noticed it before, but when he strains his memory, he thinks he can remember when it was raw and new. Mickey’s wound tight as a drum, and even his response, when Eli asks, is strained.  
  
“Your brother, actually,” he says. “Hit me with a cane. Hurt, too.”  
  
Eli lets the strands of hair settle back from where he had been holding them away. His hands are shaking now. Quickly he reaches down, finds Mickey’s hand and brings it up again to stare at the webbing between thumb and forefinger. This one, he knew about. A thin little scar, from when he had been fourteen and trying to lift heavy wooden crates with his brothers back in Philadelphia. Bled for twenty minutes, he’d said cheerfully. Got blood all over the damn crates. Munya threw a fit.  
  
He’s so _real._ If Eli hadn’t seen people walk right by him every day, if he hadn’t seen Mickey die with his own two eyes, he would almost believe he was standing right there in front of him, in flesh and blood.  
  
“Odd, ain’t it,” Mickey says into the silence. He sounds distant again. “Last thing I remember is standing outside the car, talking to Charlie, and then.” He makes a soft noise with his mouth, like wind rustling through the trees. “You look like you haven’t slept in a month, same as always, and you’re counting money and I’m trying to figure out what the hell happened.”  
  
Eli wants to ask the question that’s been burning in the back of his mind since this all started, but he stays silent, craning his neck to stare up at the stars twinkling above them. He’s been raised his whole life to believe that there’s something up there for everyone when they die, but the solid, inalienable proof that there might not be is sitting right next to him.  
  
And the idea of _second chances_ run through Eli’s head, over and over again. The idea that he feels the same way about Mickey that he does about June, hell, the fact that he _has,_ it’s like a clock ticking louder and louder inside his own head until it drown out all other thoughts.  
  
Mickey sighs out through his nose, flexing his hand where Eli had been holding it up.  
  
“Well,” he says dramatically, like it’s a joke, “I guess it could be worse. At least I’m stuck with you.”  
  
And so, in a fit of panic, Eli kisses him.  
  
Mickey goes totally still, frozen like a statue, but his lips part underneath Eli’s regardless and it’s enough that Eli doesn’t feel inclined to stop. It’s not kissing June. June’s the only person Eli’s ever kissed before this with an intent, with a purpose to it not fueled by alcohol and loneliness and confusion. Sigrid had been a mistake, had been the most major fuck-up of his life, and that was a title worth mentioning. But kissing June, it was warm and loving and full of promise, even when they were just teenagers.  
  
Mickey’s not warm. He’s not cold, either. Eli doesn’t have a word for what it is, kissing Mickey. Maybe when Mickey had still been alive it would’ve been different. Maybe there would be a weight to it, a warmth, the feeling of someone’s heart thumping against his own chest, hands clutching at his sleeves, breath against his lips. Instead there’s… a whisper, like a breeze. A buzzing. The hairs rising on the back of his neck. Something not right, but something not wrong, either. Something nonetheless.  
  
He backs away, feeling self-conscious.  
  
Mickey looks completely stunned, eyes wide and lips still parted weakly. In a way, Eli feels pretty damned accomplished; Mickey Doyle, speechless. He wishes he could take a picture.  
  
“Um,” Mickey finally says, blinking. “What. What was that for?”  
  
Shit. Eli can feel blood rising in his cheeks, and Mickey suddenly has an expression on his face that Eli can’t put a word to. It’s not disgust; it looks rather like _fear,_ like he’s afraid, and well. Eli’s always been really great at fucking everything up, so this is no surprise.  
  
“Nothin’,” he says gruffly, and turns to go inside. “Stupid. It was stupid, don’t-- don’t bring it up again. Sorry,” he tacks on at the end, turning to hurry back inside where he can bury his head under his pillow and possibly suffocate himself.  
  
But Mickey grabs his arm, stops him and that’s enough for Eli to jerk his arm away, turn back with his chest already puffing up in defense. He’s going to have to face this head-on, as much as he wishes he didn’t have to. In the back of his mind, he understands the significance of how their unspoken no-touch rule seems to have been permanently broken.  
  
But Mickey just looks… sad, now, eyes downcast and mouth thin.  
  
“We can’t do that, Eli,” he says stiffly, deliberately, his fingers tight where they’re wrapped around Eli’s bicep. In a hurry, Eli jerks it away and takes a step back, already guarded.  
  
“Do _what_?” he snaps, like Mickey’s the one who’s made the mistake instead of the other way around. He expects Mickey to roll his eyes and call him a name again, maybe giggle like an asshole, but Mickey just shakes his head, blue eyes hard as steel.  
  
“You know what.”  
  
“I had a thought, I acted on it,” Eli defends himself, “it doesn’t mean I expected anything to _come_ of it! Why would I?”  
  
He means for the words to land, wounded as he is, and they do. Mickey steps back, breath coming out hard before he, too, steels himself and puts as many walls up as possible. But he looks _hurt_ , and shit, Eli feels bad about it.  
  
“Well, fuck, then maybe keep your bright ideas to yourself, huh, Eli?” Mickey snaps, and for the first time since this all started, he reminds Eli of what he is and vanishes into thin air.  
  
-  
  
If Eli didn’t know any better, he’d think that Mickey was gone for good.  
  
But Mickey had explicitly said he couldn’t go anywhere without Eli, or at least he couldn’t go _far,_ which means that all during the next day, Eli keeps an eye out. It’s stuffy in the apartment, somehow, without the constant chatter in the background.  
  
He sits on the bed, slowly working his way through a sandwich, going over the conversation over and over in his head.  
  
_We can’t do that, Eli._  
  
He wonders if maybe he accidentally sent Mickey away by rejecting what he said. But then, rejection would’ve sent Mickey away in the first place, because hadn’t Eli made it explicitly clear in the beginning that he thought he was going nuts? But no, it had taken Eli snapping at him and… and fuck, kissing him, for Mickey to suddenly leave for what feels like a lot longer than a day.  
  
He stares at the floor. Maybe Mickey didn’t want anything to do with him now. Kinda poofy, after all. Men don’t walk around kissing other men, but Mickey’s also never exactly been one to be open about his sex life beyond hints and nudges. Still possible. Leave it to Eli to make things as awkward as possible for everyone involved.  
  
“I think you should go talk to your wife.”  
  
Eli nearly chokes on his bite of sandwich, coughing and hacking while Mickey looks at him with an eyebrow raised. Once Eli has his shit together, though, his immediate course of action is to glare.  
  
“ _That’s_ what you got to say after being gone all fucking day?”  
  
Mickey shrugs, shifting from one foot to the next. “It’s important, ain’t it?”  
  
Eli can feel himself bristling with anger as Mickey stares at him, almost impassively.  
  
“I’m not going to go talk to her,” he says through his teeth. “Why would I? She’s better off without me.”  
  
Mickey makes a face, rolling his shoulders mockingly. “Poor, poor Eli, ruins everything for everyone else and wants to wallow in his own self-loathing instead of trying to fix it.”  
  
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Eli snarls, standing up. “Why’re you back if you’re just going to be an asshole?”  
  
“Because if no one’s gonna push you into action, you’re never gonna do it,” Mickey retaliates, circling around the apartment restlessly. Wherever he went, it’s put him on edge. “Jesus, Eli, you can’t just sit here for the rest of your life, waiting to die. What’s that gonna do for you?” When Eli doesn’t respond, he continues, and that Mickey should be giving Eli a _get your shit together_ speech. What the fuck. “You gotta go talk to June, gotta tell her that you’re sorry and figure things out between the two of you. Otherwise, you’re never gonna be happy again.”  
  
“What’s it matter to you?” Eli knows he’s being childish, but being told how to live his life by someone who is a) dead and b) not the greatest example of getting your shit together in the first place has grated his nerves a little.  
  
“Maybe because I’m stuck with your miserable ass, and I wanna not spend the rest of eternity attached to a friendless bozo who spends all his time working or sleeping. Maybe that’s why.”  
  
They glare at each other, Eli’s mouth thin and Mickey swallowing angrily, until the anger burns itself out and leaves a silence in its wake. Neither of them have anything to combat the other, especially since Eli’s not saying anything that Mickey can retaliate to, and unfortunately for Eli, Mickey’s also made a really good point..  
  
They’re quiet for a while, until Mickey finally says carefully, “can we head down to the beach?”  
  
“Go if you want. I ain’t stopping you.”  
  
Mickey stares at him until it clicks.  
  
“...I guess I am.” He doesn’t have to. They could just sit there in silence, sulking, not speaking to each other for the rest of the night.  
  
Instead, Eli shoves off the bed and reaches for his hat, dutifully not looking Mickey in the eyes. He barely remembers to lock the door; he wouldn’t have even bothered if he didn’t still have so much money left over from what Nucky gave him.  
  
It’s been a while since he went down to the beach. He and June used to bring the kids all the time, of course; packed a basket, grabbed as many towels as they could, and would watch as the children buried themselves in the sand and threw each other in the water with screams of laughter. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the ocean, the salty air that stings your nose and the crash of the waves.  
  
The sun’s setting, casting shades of orange and red across the water, shards of white that dance all the way to the sand. There are footsteps here and there, dug into the sand, but anyone still on the beach is far away, walking had in hand. It’s a beautiful sight, really. Peaceful.  
  
“Never came out here,” Mickey says from next to him. Eli looks over, finds him standing with his hands in his pockets. “Thought it would be nice, you know, getting to appreciate it. Live in Philly growing up, you don’t really think about the ocean, do you?”  
  
Eli snorts. “Here you kinda take it for granted.”  
  
Mickey hums thoughtfully. Again they lapse into silence, but whatever tenseness there was in the apartment, they seem to have left it there. Now, they both simply stand, watching as the waves break gently against Eli’s feet. He stares at white foam, remembers when Nucky used to take his hand and they’d walk all the way down the length of the boardwalk, as far as they could go, and then all the way back until it was nighttime and they had to go back home.  
  
“Listen.” Mickey looks over at him when he speaks, and Eli swallows before continuing. “About what happened the other night--”  
  
“Water under the bridge,” Mickey says over him, turning back towards the water again. Everything about his tone indicates he doesn’t want to talk about it, but Eli presses on. It’s worth talking about.  
  
“I’m _serious_ , Mickey.”  
  
“So am I,” Mickey says stiffly. “This ain’t why I wanted to come out here, Eli. Let’s just enjoy the sunset for once, not have any worries. Okay?”  
  
Eli makes it to about forty-three seconds before he tries again.  
  
“I just wanna say I’m sorry about what I said--”  
  
“ _Eli_.” Mickey looks at him, and there’s a desperation that he’s never seen there before. “I mean it. It’s okay. Let’s drop it, hmm?”  
  
“I can’t drop it.” Eli steps up closer, crowding into Mickey’s space more than he knows is allowed as he stares him dead in the eye. Mickey stares back, perturbed, lips pressed thinly together like he isn’t sure what to make of him. “I made a mistake, and I took it out on you, and I’m sorry.”  
  
Mickey sighs out through his nose, slow, irritated without any real irritation. He looks more exhausted than anything else, but he still answers. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
Eli’s been around Mickey long enough to know when he’s hurt by something, even if the bastard’s real good at acting like he’s not. Mickey’s got a knack for shutting the world out with giggles and quips, but Eli knows he’s on the list, and he knows that Mickey will tell him anything if he prods long enough.  
  
“You’re worrying about it,” he points out.  
  
Mickey bites his lip, just once, before finally chuckling. He’s staring off at the ocean again, eyes as distant as the horizon. Eli can see how the light reflects in his eyes.  
  
“Nothing gets by you,” Mickey says fondly, and kicks at the waves that are still sifting against Eli’s shoes. He makes a bit of a break in the water, but nothing significant, and he sighs deeply before looking back up.  
  
“Listen, Eli. What happened… it shouldn’t have happened.” Eli’s heart beats a little too fast, anger and hurt welling up in the center of his chest. But before he can respond, or even react, Mickey adds, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it did, but it… it shouldn’t have.”  
  
Eli can’t help but puff up his chest a little. “Why not?”  
  
“Maybe you didn’t get the memo, but I’m dead.” Mickey giggles, then. “Kind of hard to have a stable, solid relationship, don’t you think? People will start to think you’ve gone even loonier then you already are. Besides, you’ve got a wife, that you love very much. Don’t throw that away on me.”  
  
“I’m not throwing anything away,” Eli says stiffly. “She don’t deserve to have me back in her life, when she can be happy. I don’t deserve _her_.”  
  
“So you jump on a dead guy? At least I get second pick.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”  
  
Another giggle, and Mickey starts heading up towards the boardwalk; Eli follows mostly out of habit, trailing along after until he falls in step with him. People walk around Mickey, as always, as if they can sense his presence even if they can’t see him. Mickey’s staring into all of the stores as they pass them by, looking as though he’d like to go in.  
“You miss anything in particular?” Eli asks when he’s out of earshot of any bystanders, and Mickey sighs theatrically.  
  
“Booze,” he answers, and his tone is wistful. “Smoking, too. All the vices, I guess. Could really use a glass of the good stuff right now. Or, hell…” he trails off, then shrugs. “Warmth of another person. No way to describe how this feels, but it ain’t nice.” Another pause. “It’s kind of lonely.”  
  
“I tried to fix that,” Eli points out sarcastically. “You turned me down flat.”  
  
Mickey snorts. “Already told you, Eli, that’s not going to work out. Never would have”  
  
“We could’ve--”  
  
“Woulda, coulda, shoulda.” Mickey scoffs, his shoulders jumping with the motion. They’ve moved into town, walking past quaint little house with perfect lawns and the lights turned on in their living rooms. “Could do a lot with what ifs, but that ain’t gonna solve any problems.”  
  
“We could’ve figured something out,” Eli tries to protest again, but Mickey huffs out another little laugh.  
  
“I was still learning how to string words together the first time you met June,” Mickey replies, and his voice is so _soft._ It’s not right, it doesn’t feel right, and the hairs on the back of Eli’s neck are standing up. “I never stood a chance, life or death. Some things just ain’t meant to be, Eli. You just gotta learn to live with it.” He laughs again, something close to his old giggle. “Well. Not in my case.”  
  
Eli shakes his head as they cross a street, his shoes loud against the pavement. There’s no one around on the street to hear him talking to himself.  
  
“When did you get so wise?”  
  
“Death opens all sorts of doors,” Mickey says easily. “Guess it looks good on me.” He pauses thoughtfully. “And not waiting for everything I say to get me killed? Hell of a stress relief.”  
  
Eli could drink to that, he thinks, if he ever drank alcohol again. No one’s been threatening his life recently, and it certainly lowered his blood pressure. They’re still walking, occasionally chatting, the conversation becoming one sided whenever a pedestrian passes them by. The farther they go, the quieter Mickey seems to get.  
  
“Where did you go all day?” Eli finally asks, watching Mickey’s sharp profile. It’s been nagging at him since Mickey first returned, since he first showed up, started leading Eli on their little adventure.  
  
“Testing boundaries, I guess. Seeing where I can go. Things that are attached to you, somehow, I can visit. So I did a little soul searching, that whole thing.” Mickey stops walking, finally, and turns to look Eli in the eyes. “Ended up here.”  
  
Eli blinks at looks at where they’ve stopped, stares up at the building and the lights inside, the lawn, the bushes. The number. His heart pounds in his chest as he stares.  
  
“This is my house,” Eli says blankly, and looks over at Mickey. His smile is small, vaguely sad. Lonely.  
  
“I figured it out,” Mickey shrugs, and brushes a finger against Eli’s chin. “Why I’m here.”  
  
And then he leans in, and Mickey kisses him. _Mickey_ kisses _him._ Not the other way around, not any initiation on Eli’s part. He’s frozen solid where he stands, and the wind whips around them, rustling Eli’s coat. When they break apart, Eli realizes he closed his eyes, like a damn schoolgirl. Mickey’s barely an inch from his face, still holding Eli’s chin with the curl of his finger, still looking at him with something so goddamn reverent that it feels wrong.  
  
“I love you, you idiot,” Mickey says against his lips. Eli isn’t breathing. “Always have. Now go talk to your fucking wife.”  
  
Eli blinks.  
  
“But--”  
  
“No buts.” Mickey pulls away and shoves him determinedly towards the house. “Go on, then. Get to it.”  
  
Scowling, Eli hitches up his collar a little and stares at the door, a thousand years away at the end of the walkway. He doesn’t know if Mickey’s following him or not, though it must be the case. He feels something that can’t be described merely by _nervous_ ; he feels like his stomach is caving in on itself with anxiety.  
  
He wants to talk to June, he does. But he’s already cheated on her once before, already gone behind her back and done something unforgivable. How is he going to face her after both that and now _this_? Does it count if the person is dead? he wants to ask.  
  
With a deep breath he starts walking, hands curled into fists at his side. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Mickey following, and somehow that provides him comfort. Fucking tell him that ten years ago, he’d probably laugh. And yet here he is, checking over his shoulder to make sure. Mickey rolls his eyes and flaps his hand. Eli gestures widely, because _honestly,_ don’t push him.  
  
He doesn’t know what he’s going to say.  
  
What’s he _supposed_ to say? “Sorry, June, sorry I fucked another man’s wife while I was three sheets to the wind, I’m sorry I single-handedly destroyed the only thing that made me happy when my life was hell. Sorry that I just kissed the ghost of a dead man I may or may not have also had feelings for for longer than I was aware”?  
  
Jesus Christ.  
  
He spends so much time going over those thoughts, over and over and over, that it takes him a moment to realize that he’s on the porch, standing in front of the door. A door he’s opened and closed many times, peeked through, flung open for the kids as they came home from school. It sets an ache in the pit of Eli’s stomach to see it, and when he turns Mickey’s standing next to him again.  
  
_I can’t do this_ , Eli wants to say, but Mickey looks at him sidelong and then reaches down.  
  
Fingers close gently around his wrist, far more gentle than Eli’s ever expected from him, and Eli realizes he’s _terrified_. Utterly out of his mind with fear of what June will say to him, whether she’ll take him back. The grim, icy realization that she might not. Probably won’t.  
  
The wood is cold when Mickey presses Eli’s knuckles against it. When Eli looks at him again, he simply tilts his chin at the door, just looking at him. Eli’s hand is shaking, he realizes now.  
  
It’s now or never.  
  
He knocks, just a few times, and when the door opens, Eli’s breath catches in his throat all over again.  
  
She’s still beautiful. Beautiful golden curls, beautiful eyes, beautiful lips. Everything about June sends Eli back to the day when they first met, when he first realized he was in love. When her hair was longer, twisted up into a bun at the nape of her neck. The way she had kissed him on their third date, improper but everything that Eli wanted. When he was still gangly and there were still bruises where no one else could see, where Nucky couldn’t always protect him.  
  
Her eyes widen as she realizes who’s standing at the door, and then she drops her gaze. Eli swallows, nervously, notes her flattened stomach. She had the baby, then.  
  
“Hi, June,” he says hoarsely, and she flinches like it hurts.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here, Eli.” She shifts uncomfortably, and when it’s clear that she’s about to close the door, Eli’s mouth starts running away without him. Seeing her, it did something, it completely stole any reservations he may have had.  
  
“I fucked up,” Eli says in a rush, and June’s eyes flick towards him again. “I fucked up, June. I know I did. Losing you’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, and-- and no amount of excuses is gonna change that fact. I can put blame on everything else in the world, I really could, but I love you more than to give you less than what you deserve.” His tone turns desperate. “I just. I figured a lot of things out about myself, done a lot of thinking and I-- I wanna talk, June. That’s all. I just wanna talk.”  
  
There’s a pause between the two of them, and Eli adds what he has been meaning to say to her for ages.  
  
“I’m sorry, June.”  
  
June stares at him through the crack in the door, and Eli knows it’s coming. Knows she’s gonna slam it shut in his face, and then what will he have? The shadow of a friend, an empty flat, brotherless, kids he hasn’t seen in seven years, that he can’t see. Mickey’s quiet from behind him.  
  
The door opens wider, and June nods slowly.  
  
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Okay, Eli. We’ll talk.”  
  
The startled noise Eli makes sounds like a sigh, almost. Maybe a laugh. June doesn’t quite smile, but there’s a softness to her that’s returned, something that used to be there when they were young and free and desperate. He crosses the threshold, takes his hat off and tries to make himself small as June closes the door.  
  
He looks back outside, grinning slightly despite himself, and then freezes.  
  
For just one second he sees Mickey before the door closes. They lock eyes, and Mickey’s lips quirk into a little smile. It’s not his usual smile; it’s something soft and gentle, and it’s _knowing,_ and in that terrible moment between them Eli realizes, somehow, that he’s never going to see Mickey again. That the last moment they shared together, that’s all he’s going to get. That it was a sacrifice and a goodbye and last right, all wrapped in one. One last gift to Eli.  
  
When he goes back to his apartment tonight, it will be alone.  
  
The door shuts with a click, and June looks up at him when he doesn’t move. “What are you looking at?”  
  
Eli blinks, staring at the door before he slowly turns his attention back to her. His lips part as he struggles for a moment, trying to come up with something to say. His chest feels oddly empty, a cavern. Something clearly missing, and as June stares at him curiously, eyebrows furrowed, Eli swallows hard.  
  
“...nothing,” he replies finally, and his voice is hoarse. “Just... I remembered something, is all.”


End file.
